[IMHO, this account is worth reading in its entirety, even for obsessives (while, actually I guess mostly for us). It contains excellent arguments and notes several delicious facts I hadn't thought of lately. For example, it notes in passing that, unlike an independent prosecutor, Fitzgerald reports to Attorney General Gonzales, who in theory has to approve all indictments. Saturday night massacre, anyone? And the last paragraph presents a delightful prospect: that if there are indictments, Wilson and Plame will most likely go ahead with a civil suit against Cheney and Libby -- which, under the current law -- *set in the Paula Jones case* -- would compel him to testify under oath while in office. (The legal reasoning behind the Jones decision was of course revealed by subsequent history to be completest nonsense. But it's certainly poetic justice.)]
[The headline below makes it look like Cheney might get indicted. But if you read the entire article, they make it very clear that "there is no indication of criminal charges against Cheney," and they explain why -- that it looks not that the criminal charges will be about obstruction of justice, not conspiracy to out an agent.]
[However the article also describes the real possibility that Fitzgerald might outline the role of Cheney as the organizer of the scheme in conjunction with issuing indictments of Rove and Libby -- charges this article argues are likely. That combination would be an amazing political blow.]
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aSuj1d8CcYAk&refer=top_world_news
Cheney May Be Entangled in CIA Leak Investigation, People Say
Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- A special counsel is focusing on whether Vice
President Dick Cheney played a role in leaking a covert CIA agent's
name, according to people familiar with the probe that already
threatens top White House aides Karl Rove and Lewis Libby.
The special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, has questioned current and
former officials of President George W. Bush's administration about
whether Cheney was involved in an effort to discredit the agent's
husband, Iraq war critic and former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson,
according to the people.
Fitzgerald has questioned Cheney's communications adviser Catherine
Martin and former spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise and ex-White House
aide Jim Wilkinson about the vice president's knowledge of the
anti-Wilson campaign and his dealings on it with Libby, his chief of
staff, the people said. The information came from multiple sources,
who requested anonymity because of the secrecy and political
sensitivity of the investigation.
New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who has now testified twice
before a federal grand jury probing the case after spending 85 days in
jail for refusing to cooperate with Fitzgerald, wrote in yesterday's
New York Times that Fitzgerald asked her whether the vice president
``had known what his chief aide,'' Libby, ``was doing and saying''
regarding Wilson, a critic of the war in Iraq.
Fitzgerald has told lawyers involved in the case that he hopes to
conclude soon -- the grand jury's term expires Oct. 28, although it
could be extended -- and there is a growing sense among knowledgeable
observers that the outcome will involve serious criminal charges.
``Fitzgerald is putting together a big case,'' Washington attorney
Robert Bennett, who represents Miller, said on the ABC-TV program
``This Week'' yesterday.
Possible Charges
The charges could range from a broad conspiracy case to more narrowly
drawn indictments for obstruction of justice or perjury, according to
lawyers involved in the case. Charges are considered less likely on
the law that initially triggered Fitzgerald's probe, which makes it
illegal to deliberately unmask an undercover intelligence agent,
because of the difficulty in meeting that statute's exacting standards
for prosecution.
Lea Anne McBride, a Cheney spokesman, declined to comment yesterday on
whether the vice president, 64, has been contacted by Fitzgerald about
his status in the case, except to say: ``This is an ongoing
investigation, and we are fully cooperating.'' Randall Samborn, a
Fitzgerald spokesman, declined to comment. Calls to Robert Luskin,
Rove's attorney, and Joseph Tate, Libby's lawyer, weren't returned.
There's no indication Fitzgerald is considering criminal charges
against the vice president, who gave unsworn testimony to
investigators last year. One option for Fitzgerald is to outline his
findings about Cheney's role if he files a final report on the
investigation.
Questioned Officials
Fitzgerald, 45, has also questioned administration officials about any
knowledge Bush may have had of the campaign against Wilson. Yet most
administration observers have noted that on Iraq, as with most
matters, it's Cheney who has played the more hands-on role.
One lawyer intimately involved in the case, who like the others
demanded anonymity, said one reason Fitzgerald was willing to send
Miller to jail to compel testimony was because he was pursuing
evidence the vice president may have been aware of the specifics of
the anti-Wilson strategy.
And both U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan and an appellate-court
panel -- including David Tatel, a First Amendment advocate -- said
they ruled in Fitzgerald's favor because of the gravity of the case.
Pace of Probe
Katy Harriger, a political scientist at Wake Forest University in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who has written extensively about
special-counsel investigations, said the pace and trajectory of
Fitzgerald's probe suggests it will end with the indictment of Rove,
Libby or both.
Harriger said she anticipates indictments in part because of the
special prosecutor's willingness to jail Miller. ``That's not
something you do unless you really have something more going on that
isn't obvious to the public,'' she said.
Larry Barcella, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the District of
Columbia, said the recent activity in the case suggests criminal
charges are likely, although not in connection with the 1982 law
making it illegal to disclose a covert agent's identity.
A more likely focus is possible ``false statements, conspiracy or
obstruction of justice,'' said Barcella, now a defense lawyer for the
Washington-based law firm of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker. ``It's
obviously not good that Rove and Libby have spent so much time before
the grand jury.''
An Active Participant
To make a case against Cheney as part of a conspiracy indictment,
Fitzgerald would have to show the vice president was an active
participant in a decision to smear Wilson, Barcella said. ``It's a
case most easily made if you can prove a person knowingly entered into
an agreement to do something illegal,'' he said. ``Beyond that, it can
be tricky.''
Fitzgerald's status differs in one potentially important respect from
the independent counsels who investigated alleged wrongdoing during
earlier administrations. They reported to a panel of appellate judges,
while Fitzgerald reports to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who at
least theoretically must approve any indictment.
Given the prospect of both protracted criminal cases and then civil
lawsuits, it now seems possible the issue will bedevil the final years
of Bush's presidency, much as the Iran- contra affair burdened
President Ronald Reagan's second term and the Monica Lewinsky scandal
plagued President Bill Clinton's.
No Leaks
While there have been virtually no leaks out of Fitzgerald's office,
and even the subjects of his investigation are unsure about his
intentions, White House officials and Bush supporters are fearful that
recent developments spell legal jeopardy for Rove, the central
strategist behind Bush's political campaigns and much of his
presidency, and Libby, a key architect of the Iraq war strategy.
When the investigation began, White House officials asserted that
neither Rove nor Libby played any role in the outing of Plame, and
both aides told Fitzgerald that they learned of her identity from
journalists.
In her Times account, Miller said she told Fitzgerald and the grand
jury that Libby, 55, raised the subject of Wilson's wife during a
meeting with Miller on June 23, 2003. That was before Wilson, 55, went
public in a Times op-ed piece with his accusation that Bush and his
aides had ``twisted'' intelligence findings to justify invading Iraq,
although administration officials knew he was privately critical.
Contracted Account
While Miller didn't say Libby had identified Plame as a covert agent,
her account calls into question Libby's assertion that he first
learned of Plame's identity from reporters.
Miller, 57, said she went to jail rather than testify because, unlike
other reporters, she didn't feel Libby had given her specific and
voluntary permission to speak about their confidential conversations.
She relented when Libby contacted her by telephone and letter last
month, saying he had always expected her to testify.
Those communications with Miller may pose legal problems for Libby.
His letter to her stated that ``the public report of every other
reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's
name or identity with me.''
Miller wrote in her Times article that Fitzgerald asked her to read
that portion of the letter aloud to the grand jurors and asked for her
reaction to Libby's words. She said that part of the letter had
``surprised me because it might be perceived as an effort by Mr. Libby
to suggest that I, too, would say we had not discussed Ms. Plame's
identity. Yet my notes suggested that we had discussed her job.''
`Stupid Thing to Do'
Bennett, Miller's attorney, yesterday called that part of Libby's
letter ``a very stupid thing to do.'' Other lawyers suggested it could
become part of any obstruction-of-justice charge Fitzgerald might
bring.
Rove's testimony also has been contradicted by others, such as Time
magazine reporter Matt Cooper. He said his July 2003 conversation with
the White House aide focused more on Wilson and his wife than Rove had
testified, while adding Rove had not identified her by name. There is
also at least one discrepancy between Rove's version and that of
columnist Robert Novak, who first identified Plame as a Central
Intelligence Agency operative in July 2003, according to persons
familiar with their accounts.
Rove, 54, returned to the grand jury for a fourth time on Oct. 14 and
testified for more than four hours. His lawyer, Luskin, who has spoken
frequently with reporters, has gone from public optimism that his
client faces little legal danger to cautiously noting only that
Fitzgerald hasn't told them Rove is a ``target.''
Wilson's Assignment
Wilson was dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate
reports, since discredited, that Saddam Hussein's regime was trying to
buy uranium in Niger as part of a nuclear- weapons program. After Bush
cited similar reports in his Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union speech
and the U.S. invaded Iraq in March of that year, Wilson began telling
some journalists anonymously that the claim was questionable.
That prompted behind-the-scenes administration attempts to discredit
Wilson. In his June 2003 meeting with Miller, Libby told her, in the
context of a conversation critical of the CIA, that Wilson's wife
worked for the spy agency, according to an account published in the
Times yesterday.
Wilson went public with his criticism on July 6, 2003. In his Times
piece, he concluded: ``Some of the intelligence related to Iraq's
nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.''
Talked with Reporters
Over the next week, Libby and Rove talked to reporters, on the
condition they not be identified, about Wilson's article and the fact
that his CIA-employed wife may have had a role in giving him the Niger
assignment.
Plame's identity was first published by Novak on July 14. He cited
``two senior administration officials'' as the sources of the
information that Plame, 42, suggested Wilson for the Niger trip. Novak
hasn't commented publicly on those sources.
Miller never wrote a story about Wilson or his wife -- although in one
of her notebooks, dated July 8, 2003, a notation appears for ``Valerie
Flame.''
One of the subplots is the role played by the New York Times. In
addition to Miller's personal account, the Times yesterday published a
separate 5,800-word piece that criticized both Miller and the way the
newspaper handled the story.
Never Saw Notes
The article reported the paper's publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and
its executive editor, Bill Keller, unequivocally supported their
reporter in her legal battle although ``they knew few details about
Ms. Miller's conversations with her confidential source,'' and ``did
not review'' her notes.
Miller, who wrote many influential pre-war war stories about Hussein's
purported weapons of mass destruction that the Times later
acknowledged were flawed, told the grand jury she recommended in 2003
that the newspaper pursue the Plame story. Jill Abramson, the
newspaper's managing editor, said Miller never made any such
recommendation.
In an interview yesterday, Wilson said that once the criminal
questions are settled, he and his wife may file a civil lawsuit
against Bush, Cheney and others seeking damages for the alleged harm
done to Plame's career.
If they do so, the current state of the law makes it likely that the
suit will be allowed to proceed -- and Bush and Cheney will face
questioning under oath -- while they are in office. The reason for
that is a unanimous 1997 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that Paula
Jones' sexual harassment suit against then-President Bill Clinton
could go forward immediately, a decision that was hailed by
conservatives at the time.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Richard Keil in Washington at dkeil at bloomberg.net
©2005 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved.